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Facebook to change user terms, limiting effect of EU privacy law

reuters.com

141–150 of 409 posts

Re: Facebook to change user terms, limiting effect of EU privacy law

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a lot of users and GDPR is really tricky to implement when dealing with any manual processes. Though they have a lot of users in the EU (population 700M), it seems that once they figure out how to do it for their 250M (?) EU users, expanding it to 2B users is not a huge stretch.

My point is that I don't think they have it figured out ;-) (and they have just over a month left!) I agree that once they get it sorted (which they will have to do), they will almost certainly roll out the majority of it world wide just because it is easier.

Very few companies (care to) understand GDPR and the full extent or its reach/scope. Most think that it's all about "adding the privacy policy to our website" and that's it.

When the flood of letters starts, THEN they will feel the true pain/essence/extent of GDPR.

E.g. when my bank will get MY letter asking them who they share my data to, and asking them to STOP sharing my data with friggin FB (WTF???) on their app.. it will be fun to watch them squirm.

Re: Facebook to change user terms, limiting effect of EU privacy law

#142
post #110
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook just needs to be gone forever now.

Why?

Because:

a) it is not possible to tear it down and start over with good material/intentions/ethics

b) they do not want to change their model, because they are making money from their current practices

c) it is a VERY useful tool for evey government's dark/shady practices (gag order + give-us-everything)(exactly what every dictatorship does)

d) people need to be protected even if they don't understand the risks (e.g. houses are built following a code - even if people don't understand that walls need X material and I-beams need to have Y width).

Re: Facebook to change user terms, limiting effect of EU privacy law

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the thought of the next job interview could help them grow a moral spine?

Have your interviews focused on personal morality, or on getting the job done?

I did have to explain the " job done" and it's purpose.

Re: Facebook to change user terms, limiting effect of EU privacy law

#144
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the servers matter, it's not really about the servers, it's about the business side of it, they operate a low tax business within the EU. I don't think they can move out of the EU without all of a sudden not having to pay a lot more for doing business with EU companies. So they still want to operate as a company within the EU to get the tax advantages, but then also are subject to the laws.

If FB moves all their operations out if the EU, how does the EU tax a company? Presumably EU companies can do business with non-EU companies without the other company having an EU presence? Genuinely curious. Not sure how this works as I'm not a bizguy.

They can seize money transfers en route to Facebook from their EU customers.

Facebook receives billions of advertising revenue from Europe (IIRC some 25% of their global revenue), all that money can be trivially seized by authorities, they just need to file the proper request.

Furthermore, there are international agreements on cooperation against tax evasion; I'm not aware of the details for this process but I assume that they could and would use the USA legal system to enforce collection of legitimate debts.

Re: Facebook to change user terms, limiting effect of EU privacy law

#145

> But the fact that the button to reject the new Terms of Service isn’t even a button, it’s a tiny “see your options” hyperlink, shows how badly Facebook wants to avoid you closing your account. > When Facebook’s product designer for the GDPR flow was asked if she thought this hyperlink was the best way to present the alternative to the big “I Accept” button, she disingenuously said yes, eliciting scoffs from the roo…

I wonder if I could live with myself if I had to hold everybody to my own moral standards. I guess I would just give up on life.

Re: Facebook to change user terms, limiting effect of EU privacy law

#146
post #41

User's generally won't care about privacy, but they will care about money. What this essentially boils down to is Facebook is charging users by taking their data, which is worth some amount of money.

Website terms and conditions could ask for a pint of blood from their firstborn and people would still click okay. No one reads these things. The GDPR is just going to end up being a more annoying version of the cookie law.

For the reasons you describe, if a user simply clicks 'Agree' to something like the current T&C, it will not be considered as informed, freely given consent by GDPR and thus will not give the website any rights to process that user's data.

Re: Facebook to change user terms, limiting effect of EU privacy law

#148
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Because: a) it is not possible to tear it down and start over with good material/intentions/ethics b) they do not want to change their model, because they are making money from their current practices c) it is a VERY useful tool for evey government's dark/shady practices (gag order + give-us-everything)(exactly what every dictatorship does) d) people need to be protected even if they don't understand the risks (e.g.…

e) 'Black Mirror' was supposed to be a screenplay, not a business plan

Re: Facebook to change user terms, limiting effect of EU privacy law

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If FB moves all their operations out if the EU, how does the EU tax a company? If Facebook moved its servers and personnel out of the EU to avoid complying with EU law, I'd fully expect--and support--the EU to (a) punitively taxing EU businesses buying Facebook ads, (b) banning EU businesses from buying said ads, (c) extraditing Facebook executives to the EU and then (d) blocking Facebook in the EU. No jurisdiction…

What that setup describes is a required implementation of the Chinese firewall and vast Internet controls by the EU over all persons within the EU. There's no other way to enforce such a scheme otherwise, you have to know all about user & business Internet use. Option C would never happen. Option D requires the Chinese firewall, very obviously. It's very aggressively courting fascism, practically begging for it; a re…

> What that setup describes is a required implementation of the Chinese firewall

No, it does not. China's firewall is designed to keep broad swaths of information away from its citizens. An EU block would be designed to put Facebook, and only Facebook, at a strikingly material disadvantage on the Continent. The former must be comprehensive, the latter narrow.

In any case, we're describing a technical solution to a legal problem. If someone believes European courts could not get their pound of flesh from Facebook, that is the definition of arrogance.

Re: Facebook to change user terms, limiting effect of EU privacy law

#150
post #13

Zuckerberg went to Congress and told them Facebook would support GDPR, as if the only thing GDPR is are just some controls you'd do at the user interface level (and as we learned today, that they're attempting to get around with dark pattern designs [1]). GDPR is much more comprehensive than that, but most importantly it gives data privacy regulators real teeth to enforce with (fines up to 4% of global revenue). The…

You are assuming GDPR is good. I don’t think so. I don’t want GDRP in the US. The worst abuser of privacy - right now - is the government. I don’t think putting redtapes on startups will solve anything.

This doesn't mean Facebook should get a free pass. If anything it should get less of a pass because governments love to use the hands of corporations to do what they do (e.g. Hollywood blacklists of communists back in the day, dipping into Facebook's or Google's data stash with a warrant, etc.).

At this point private corporations 'helping' the government is exactly the worrying part because the government at least has some decorum and is keeping up some pretenses and you have to really be in the wrong place, at the wrong time and have an ethnicity that somewhat matches the supposed crime.

Meanwhile with corporations it's starting to look like a free for all between machine learning, big data, hidden internal Terms of Service kangaroo courts and so on. You can get blacklisted, flagged, (shadow)banned and not even know it. And then government or other corporation buys that Big Data DB and real fun starts.

If the government actually wants to capitalize on the data it has there is a lot of instant red tape applied. You can't just get arrested, told you're a terrorist and put in jail for 10 years with 0 process, 0 appeal and 0 documents (well, except with Gitmo but it's a special case).

Meanwhile the corporations can turn you into a functional half-leper in the modern increasingly online society and deny you business arbitrarily (or even secretly) as hell because their deep learning said so (and what they feed in there, what comes out, who made it and how - you don't get to know that), they don't care enough to admit a mistake and the most appeal opportunity you get is customer support ran by lobotomy patients. There's 0 recourse to being shadowbanned, hellbanned, blacklisted, whatever, sometimes even 0 contact option other than making a new account (which breaks their ToS in itself) and unlike the government that has watchful eyes on it from all sides for abuses you'll be told it's "a private business so they can do anything" or that you deserved it because it's a Cool and Good Company.

There was a story that some Palestinian guy got arrested because Facebook translated his "good morning" in some Arabic dialect into "attack them"[0]. If it wasn't the Israeli police arresting him but instead Facebook doing some deep mind big data crap and covertly flagging him as a potential terrorist then he might have found out 5 or 10 years from now that he can't get a plane ticket because some airline or other secretly sourced Facebook's DB and he has no way to even find out where that flagging came from because corporations are free to be secretive in their decision making.

Government also follows some logic (simplistic, biased, populist, racist or reductionist - sure, but still), while corporations can just spit out a verdict with 0 explanations with a link to 20 page ToS written in pseudo-lawyer pseudo-English and say that a video making fun of a mass shooter is suitable for advertisers and one of eating a carrot in a silly hat or swinging a banana around (it's not an euphemism, I mean an actual banana) is not[1].

[0] - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/24/facebook-...

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uIn_3704pk

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